Kathryn Janeway

Notes

Early Life

Kathryn Janeway was born on the 20th of May2 in Bloomington3, Indiana, on Earth.4 Her father Edward5 was a Starfleet admiral. Janeway was especially close to her father, and she was devastated when he drowned under the polar icecap on Tau Ceti Prime prior to 2358. She spent months in bed, sleeping her days away to avoid confronting her feelings. Eventually her sister managed to force her to accept the death and move on with her life.6

Kathryn spent much of her childhood wandering the plains around her grandfather's farm. When she was six years old, she saw a bolt of lightning split an oak tree in her grandfather's yard. She had climbed the tree just hours earlier, and would later recall that no anomaly she ever encountered was as frightening as a thunderstorm.7 Despite this fear she once walked home during a thunderstorm, a distance of seven kilometres, because she was upset at losing a tennis match.8

Career

Janeway's first posting after the academy was as a science officer aboard the USS Al-Batani7, where her commanding officer was Captain Owen Paris. She participated in the Orias Expedition.1During her time aboard the Al-Batani Janeway once misaligned the positronic relays, knocking out power to six decks.7

As a Lieutenant Janeway took part in a border conflict with the Cardassians. At one point she was part of an away team which defended a Federation outpost. The team was cut off from support and locked in combat for three days. At one point her commanding officer ordered Janeway and another officer to crawl out from cover to rescue a wounded Cardassian solider stranded between the two sides. She would later comment that although she thought her orders were crazy, in retrospect saving the life of an enemy would be one of her proudest moments.Janeway and every other member of the away team was later decorated by Starfleet.9

Janeway first rose to command in 2363, when she first met Tuvok. She was annoyed when Tuvok criticised her in front of three Starfleet Admirals for failing to observe proper tactical procedures during that first missionm but had to admit that Tuvok was correct in his assessment.10

Janeway also served on the USS Billings. During her time there she ordered an away team to survey a volcanic moon. A magma eruption damaged their shuttle, severely injuring three of the team. Janeway returned to the moon alone the following day to complete the survey. She wanted the crew to know that their suffering had not been in vain.11

In 2371 Janeway was appointed Commanding Officer of the USS Voyager. Her first mission was to explore the Badlands in an effort to recover her tactical officer Tuvok, who had been working undercover to penetrate the Maquis cell commanded by Chakotay. While in the Badlands both Voyager and Chakotay's ship were dragged over 70,000 light years across the galaxy by an energy wave.1 The ships had been abducted by a powerful being known as the Caretaker, who was looking for a species with compatible biology to allow him to reproduce. Although Janeway had an opportunity to return Voyager to its home space, she chose instead to destroy the Caretaker's array with tri-cobalt devices in order to prevent it's advanced technology from falling into the hands of the Kazon.12

Janeway and Chakotay both agreed to combine their crews for the return to the Alpha Quadrant. Integrating the Maquis into Voyager's crew was a little problematical at times but Janeway came to respect their abilities.13

The ship spent the first two years in the Delta Quadrant fighting off frequent Kazon attacks.14 At one point she attempted to establish a limited alliance with the Kazon and the Trabe, but the effort failed when the Trabe betrayed the peace process.15 Jonas, an engineer serving on Voyager, passed information to the Kazon on several occasions and ultimately sabotaged the ship as part of a plot to capture it, but he failed and was killed when Neelix uncovered the plan.16 Most notably, in 2372 the Kazon managed to capture the ship and strand the crew on a primitive planet.17 Fortunately Tom Paris was able to recruit help from a group of Talaxians and recapture the ship.18

In 2372 Janeway and Chakotay became infected with an incurable disease. The progress of the disease was halted by the atmosphere of a nearby planet, so she reluctantly ordered the ship to leave the two there and proceed to Earth. Fortunately Voyager was able to gain medical knowledge from the Vidiians which enabled them to return and cure the officers.19

Janeway spent considerable effort searching for ways to speed Voyager's return to Earth. She managed to establish communication with a romulan ship via a wormhole, but was unable to exploit this as the wormhole was linked to a point twenty years in Voyager's past.20 Another effort utilising the Barzan wormhole also failed.21 She would also try to convince the Sikarians to transport Voyager tens of thousands of light years towards Earth using their trajector technology, but this effort failed because of cultural and technological incompatabilities.22 She also attempted to utilise advanced drive technologies such as pre-existing Borg transwarp conduits23, a stolen Borg transwarp coil24, a null space catapult25 and a quantum slipstream drive26, with varying degrees of success.14

Although some of the species Voyager encountered were peaceful, Janeway acquired more than her fair share of enemies during the trip. Beginning in 2372 she suffered occasional visits by Q27, and in 2373 her crew participated in the Q civil war inspired by Quinn.28 Q would later place his child temporarily under Janeway's care in an attempt to help him to learn Human morality.29

More ominously, Voyager had frequent encounters with the Borg during its time in the Delta Quadrant. Janeway encountered a wrecked Borg cube in 2373 and lent assistance to a group of surviving drones who had been cut off from the collective by the accident, though she was dismayed when some of the group chose to re-establish a limited form of the collective on the survivors.30 Some months later Janeway encountered an entire fleet of Borg cubes, but they ignored Voyager almost completely. She found the ships wrecked hours later, a result of a battle with Species 8472. Considering the new species an even greater threat than the Borg, Janeway chose to ally herself with the Borg in an attempt to develop a weapon for use against 8472.31 The attempt was successful, and the 8472 fleet retreated from Borg space. The Borg attempted to assimilate Voyager but the ship was able to escape, capturing a Borg drone called Seven of Nine in the process.32 Janeway refused to allow the formerly Human drone to return to the collective33, and spent a great deal of time and effort encouraging her to rediscover her humanity.14 Janeway was eventually able to negotiate a peace agreement with 8472 on a future meeting.34

The Hirogen were also an occasional thorn in Voyager's side. First encountered in 2374, Janeway used a Hirogen communications system to transmit Voyager's EMH to a Starfleet vessel. The EMH was successful in informing Starfleet of Voyager's continued existence and attempts to reach home.35 Janeway would fight off Hirogen attacks on several occasions14, but in 2377 the ship was captured by the Hirogen and the crew were forced to participate in various holodeck battles for their amusement.36 Janeway ultimately managed to regain control of the ship, and donated an optronic datacore to the Hirogen in order to allow them to create holodecks of their own. It was her hope that in this way the Hirogen would cease their endless preying on other sentient species.37

Unfortunately, the Hirogen used the technology to create sentient holograms which they designed to feel the maximum possible amount of pain and fear during the hunt. The holographic prey rebelled, seeking to free others of their kind and escape Hirogen control forever.38 Janeway sympathised with their plight but was hesitant to assist them given the violence they were capable of. Ultimately she was able to capture the majority of the holograms and convince the remainder to embark on a less bloody course of action.39

Janeway also had regular brushes with time travel. In 2371 Voyager became trapped in the event horizon of a Class 4 quantum singularity. The ship met an alternate version of itself within the singularity, but Janeway was able to escape safely with the help of B'Elanna Torres.13 Shortly afterwards Janeway and Tom Paris were thrown a short time into the past whilst investigating a planet devastated by a polaric energy explosion. She was able to alter the timeline to avoid the explosion, thus avoiding the initial trip.40 In 2373 she took Voyager though a temporal rift created by the Federation Timeship Aeon, piloted by Captain Braxton, catapulting the Starship back to 20th century Earth. The Timeship itself crashed a few decades earlier, allowing Henry Starling to use its advanced technology to instigate a massive computer revolution.41 Janeway was able to prevent Starling from using the ship to gain further advantage, and her crew was returned safely to their own time and place.42

In 2374 Voyager encountered the Krenim, a species which in some timelines used temporal technology to "delete" opponents from history. In at least one timeline the ship faced virtual destrouction as a result of repeated Krenim attacks2, but Janeway was ultimately able to destroy the Krenim Timeship and restore a more agreeable timeline.43 As a result of one of Voyager's efforts to return home, this time by use of a quantum slipstream drive, the ship was destroyed with the loss of all hands except Harry Kim and Chakotay. The two laboured for decades to find a way to alter history in order to avoid the accident, and were ultimately successful in creating a new timeline in which the destruction of the ship was avoided.26 Captain Braxton was often involved with Janeway's time travelling activities, and had to repair the damage caused by at least three major temporal incursions creating numerous paradoxes. He had little patience with her actions, and eventually became so enraged with her that he attempted to destroy the ship. Ironically this resulted in yet more temporal incursions and paradoxes, and Braxton was ultimately arrested for his actions by his subordinate.44

Although Janeway did often refuse to violate Federation principles during her time in the Delta Quadrant, she was not adverse to "bending" the rules whe it suited her. In 2373 she chose to tresspass on the territory of a species known as "The Swarm", which led to the near destruction of Voyager in a conflict with the aliens.45 In 2375 she chose to force medical assistance on B'Elanna against her will.46 Perhaps most notably, in 2372 Janeway was faced with a new crewmember, Tuvix, who was created in a transporter accident which combined Neelix and Tuvok. Although Tuvix was a new lifeform with a personality and freedom of his own, Janeway nevertheless chose to murder him in order to restore her two shipmates.47

In 2375 Janeway encoutnered the USS Equinox, a Federation Starship also stranded in the Delta Quadrant. She was incensed to find that Captain Ransom and his crew were murdering alien life forms as part of a program to utilise an advanced warp engine to return home.48 Janeway's pursuit of Ransom involved her attempted torture of one of his officers and striking a deal with the aliens to give him up in return for peace.49 In 2377 Janeway was able to use a Borg transwarp conduit to finally return her ship and crew safely to Earth.50 In recognition of her historic journey Starfleet promoted her to Admiral. In 2379 she ordered Captaimn Picard to take the USS Enterprise-E to Romulus to meet with the new Praetor, Shinzon.51

Relationships

Prior to her mission to the Badlands she was romantically involved with a man named Mark. The two became engaged prior to her mission, and she sent her dog to stay with him while she was away.1 When Voyager was apparently lost Mark was devastated, and he held out hopes that she was still alive longer than most other people did. Eventually, however, he began moving on and in 2374 he became engaged to a co-worker.52 In 2375 Janeway was under the influence of an alien life form with the ability to project an idealised fantasy life onto its victims, and imagined that Mark had broken off the engagement in anticipation of her return.53

Janeway found life in the Delta Quadrant even more lonely than was the norm for a Starship Captain, since she believed that a relationship with a subordinate would be inappropriate.54 She did feel a romantic attraction to the Devore soldier Kashyk, but their relationship was ended when he admitted that he had been misleading her in order to capture a group of telepaths which Voyager was harbouring.55 In 2375 Janeway established a relationship with the holodeck character Michael Sullivan, who formed part of Tom Paris's Fair Haven program. The relationship became strained the following year when Sullivan discovered his true nature, but the two continued to be involved.56

In 2377 Janeway and the bulk of Voyager's crew were captured by the Quarren and had their memories replaced with alternate histories so they could serve as workers on their planet. Janeway struck up a relationship with a man named Jaffen57, but the relationship was ended when her original memories were returned to her.58

Janeway had a close relationship with Admiral Patterson, her teacher and mentor. Patterson was fond of firing random questions at Janeway when they met, and was impressed when she unfailingly answered them. Patterson helped Janeway become captain of Voyager, and was there to greet her when she first came aboard.44

Tuvok was one of Janeway's most trusted advisors and friends. She frequently discussed her decisions with him, and relied on his advice. She was bitterly disapointed when Tuvok disobeyed her orders in 2371 in an attempt to secure trajector technology which would allow Voyager to cover more than half the distance to Earth.22

Janeway also became close to Chakotay during his time aboard the ship. The two expressed some romantic interest when they were stranded on an alien planet for some time in 2372, but when they returned to Voyager the budding relationship ended since it would be inappropriate for her to be involved with a subordinate.19

Amelia Earhart was something of an inspiration for Janeway, and she was delighted to meet her in person in 2371 when she and several other Humans were found in suspended animation on a Delta Quardant planet, having been abducted from Earth by aliens. Amelia was tempted to join Voyager, but decided to stay with the other Humans on the planet.59

Hobbies / Interests

Janeway enjoyed spending time on the holodeck, and was especially keen on participating in Holonovels60 or spending time with historical figures such as Leonardo Da Vinci.31 She is also a keen player of the game Velocity.61 In her youth she was a keen tennis player, and took ballet lessons. When she was six she learned the dance of the Dying Swan, making her a hit in her class. She would repeat the dance in 2373 for Voyager's talent night.6 She is also an expert pool player.62

Janeway was experienced in languages, having studied chromolinguistics, American sign language and the gestural idioms of the Leyron. Even so she found the Tak Tak communication methods hard to grasp and complimented Neelix on his expertiese in this area.4

Janeway was a great admirer of coffee, which she once described as "the finest organic suspension ever devised."52 One of her favorite foods was Welsh Rabbit, which she often enjoyed on her grandfather's farm.27